> it would make more sense to me to be a/a

Yep, but I think it's intended to be a visual mnemonic. å looks like a tiny 'o' over the top of an 'a' even though that's not the letter combination it originated with.

> it's maddening finding the {[]}-_+=@ chars...

The series of RSI inducing vulcan neck pinches required to write C-like languages on a Nordic Mac layout drives me a bit mad, but I do have it in my body memory now when needs must!

I toy with the idea of designing my own 40%-ish keyboard just so I only have myself to blame for bad layout :)